sermon_02_29

During my childhood years living in the small town of Heavener, Oklahoma, Saturday was my special treat day. Treat number one was sitting in front of the local drug store with my grown up friends, Mr. and Mrs. Drake, eating a double dip ice cream cone and watching the people walk past. The Drakes had no grandchildren of their own, and my parents were pleased to lead me to them for this delightful weekly treat. Of course, I, too, thought it was a good plan.

When I got old enough to go to the Saturday afternoon movie by myself, treat number two took over. I squealed and bit my fingernails as Nioka, the slave, girl hung perilously over the hot tar pit or clung to a ½ inch twig at the edge of a 500 foot cliff as the message “to be continued” flashed on the big screen. The main feature was pretty much the same every week with a few variations. It was either Gene Autry singing to the horses and cattle or Roy Rogers and Dale Evans singing to the cowhands at the old corral as they rode off into the sunset. The other offerings would be what we called a “shoot ‘em up.” No matter who played the parts in those Saturday afternoon westerns, you could always count on one thing. The good guys always wore white hats and the bad guys always wore black hats. The conflicts were clear and were generally settled with twenty paces at high noon. Good guys always won. Would that our issues of good and bad were so clear-cut!

Luke, in today’s Gospel reading, takes us to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry of teaching and healing. It is Luke who tells the beautiful story of Jesus’ birth, and the time at age twelve when his parents found him in the temple talking with and listening to the teachers. From then until his appearance on the banks of the Jordan River when he presented himself to be baptized by John, all the gospel writers are silent.

Imagine with me that you were one of the crowd gathered by the river listening to John preach repentance. Perhaps, you were about to head home when a young man of about thirty years approached the banks of the Jordan. That man was Jesus. At his baptism a spectacular event occurred.

“When Jesus had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness...” *

Following his baptism, we find Jesus led into the desert to be tested. For forty days he prayed and struggled with the decisions that would form his ministry. He ate nothing during that time, and at the close of the forty days he was famished. Vulnerable and weak from hunger, the devil, seizing upon this opportune time, went to work tempting Jesus to choose the worldly path of power and fame.

Think for a moment about the devil’s strategy: When I’m hungry I can have visions of my favorite food dance before my eyes. I long to smell the aroma from the kitchen and feel the textures and taste the flavors as they blend together in my mouth and comfortably fill the hollow places in my stomach. At those times, it is difficult to concentrate on anything else except the feelings of hunger and the eagerness to quell the pangs.

Jesus was hungry.

It should not come as a surprise that the devil swooped in to tempt Jesus at this moment of opportunity. The devil has a way of finding us at our most vulnerable times. The devil’s mission was to divert Jesus from his mission. Therefore, he attacks at the point of greatest weakness. “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus , instantly roused from his state of hunger, makes quick reply, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.”

Changing a stone to bread addressed Jesus’ physical hunger at that moment. Jesus’ mission is not about the physical body and its need for nourishment, but about the nourishment of the soul. He would not be distracted by the temptation to misuse his power by changing a stone into bread.

Lent, the season when we mark the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness, is a special time to nourish our souls through prayer and fasting. It is a season to examine our thoughts and actions in light of God’s call upon our lives-a time for words and deeds of love and kindness that take us beyond the perceived limits of our ability.

The devil wasted little time in dangling before Jesus yet another more attractive prize. “...the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”

Now isn’t that just like the devil! He offers something that he claims belongs to him when it was never his at all!

Jesus simply replied, It is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve God only.”

The command is clear. There is no wiggle room. It is God alone to whom is given supreme loyalty, not the kingdoms of this world.

Not to be dissuaded from his task, the devil took Jesus to Jerusalem and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He (God) will command his angels concerning you to protect you, and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ “ (Note that here the devil is quoting from Psalm 91.) Jesus’ reply was direct. “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

After this, the devil withdrew. But he was not finished. Luke puts it this way: He withdrew until a more opportune time: A foreshadowing of the betrayal of Jesus at the hands of Judas into whom the devil entered.

Jesus was fully human and knew what it meant to be tempted. What is the message for you and me in Luke’s account of the temptations of Jesus? For one thing, we are clearly presented with the need for fighting our own demons. We are faced with the reality that temptation is a universal human experience, and that Jesus’ temptations speak of his humanity.

When we read this scripture, we already know the rest of the story, and I, for one, cannot imagine that Jesus could ever have been really tempted by the devils offers. But, given his experience at baptism, he would surely have needed time alone to process and discern its full meaning for his life. The use of power offered by the devil would have been real temptation. The testing for his resolve to accept his divine nature was imperative at the beginning of his ministry.

The description of the wilderness time of testing was of such great importance as to be included in all three of the synoptic gospels. In this test Jesus fulfills the command at the heart of Judaism: “Here O Israel, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.”

Again I ask, what are we to learn from this scripture text? Are we not tempted many times every day to depart from God’s law and succumb to the glitter of the world? Are we not tempted at every turn to act in ways inconsistent with the gospel of love? At the end of the day are there not myriads of missed opportunities to witness to our faith and to call for justice for all- not just for some?

I would like to go back for a moment to the Saturday western with the white hat good guys and the black hat bad guys. In those movies it really was very easy to see the difference between the good and the bad. Our moral dilemmas are not so clear cut. Even if we do recognize evil, we may lack the wisdom to deal with moral temptations we typically face. When does what is good for the corporate body outweigh the need of an individual? Which has the higher claim? When do the needs of the unemployed to have a job outweigh anti-pollution standards to protect the ecology by closing down certain industries? There are numerous examples like that in our society. I point them out to demonstrate that our choices may not be clear issues between good and bad. What they become is the choice between bad and worse or good and better.

I dare say you were probably not expecting to hear about moral dilemmas when you came to worship this morning. But the gospel calls us to look at difficult things. I have not raised such thoughts to trouble you but rather to acknowledge that such situations are part of our human experience on a daily basis. IF WE ARE TO HAVE THE TOOLS TO DEAL WITH OUR EVERYDAYNESS, WE MUST FIND THEM IN OUR FAITH! We must internalize the example and teachings of Jesus if we are to be who God has called us to be. Or said another way, we have to live Monday through Saturday who we say we are on Sunday.

Today is the first Sunday in the season of Lent. Lent is a time for self examination. A time of recommitment to the vows made at our baptism. A time to be who God calls us to be. I say to you, Carpe diem! Seize the day.

* All scriptures quoted come from the fourth chapter of The Gospel According to Luke, The New Revised Standard Version.